A British Airways Concorde will take to the skies for a test flight - its first since last year's tragic crash which killed 113 people outside Paris.

A British Airways Concorde will take to the skies for a test flight - its first since last year's tragic crash which killed 113 people outside Paris.

The aim is to pave the way for a return of the supersonic aircraft to passenger service later this year.

Concorde's chief pilot Captain Mike Bannister will be at the controls when the famous plane takes off once more from Heathrow airport.

The Concorde is due to reach its top speed of 1,350mph during the three hours and 40 minutes test, which is due to end with a touchdown at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire at 6pm.

It will be a poignant event. Until last summer Concorde was considered the most exclusive way to travel around the globe.

The Concorde name was synonymous with luxury and technological advancement. The celebrities who sipped champagne on the plane as it cruised through the stratosphere at 23 miles a minute knew they were flying faster and higher than anyone - apart from astronauts ? had ever done.

Then, on July 25 last year, disaster struck when the plane crashed shortly after take-off from Charles de Gaulle airport. All 109 passengers and crew on board died as well as four people on the ground.

In just a few terrible moments, Concorde's unbroken safety record was destroyed.

Later it emerged that the crash happened after a metal object, left on the runway, burst a tyre on the aircraft. This led to a rupturing of the fuel tank which in turn triggered a catastrophic fire and caused the plane to plunge downwards.

Since the crash, various modifications have been made to both BA's and Air France's Concorde fleet to avoid any repetition of the accident.

Each of BA's seven Concordes have been fitted with new fuel tank liners and new tyres and the wiring in the undercarriage has also been strengthened.

Tomorrow's flight will enable engineers to calculate the operational effects of the modifications to confirm, for instance, their effect on fuel capacity, fuel transfer and fuel gauge readings.

Both BA and Air France, which have five remaining Concordes, hope they will then be able to resume customer-paying supersonic services by late summer or early autumn.

But will air travellers be happy to return to Concorde? Will pop stars such as Phil Collins and Diana Ross and celebrities such as The Duchess of York be keen to rub shoulders once more with top bankers and businessmen on board flights which cost upwards of #6,000 between London and New York?

Or has the reputation of Concorde for safety and luxury been damaged irreparably?

Peter Middleton, a spokesman for British Airways, believes the supersonic plane's top customers are looking forward to coming back.

He says: "We've got every indication it's going to be extremely popular. We've kept in touch with our best, regular Concorde customers. We've had some of them round to actually look at the aircraft in the hangar and climb inside it.

"We've also had a briefing to our best American customers in New York as well and there's every indication there is going to be a tremendous demand for it."

Middleton says the people who went to the hangar were very senior figures in industry and banking who have missed the convenience - and speed - of Concorde.

Many people who are high up in multinational companies saw commuting on Concorde as part of their weekly routine, he says, and they have found that first class or business flights on other planes are no substitute for hurtling across the Atlantic at twice the speed of sound - which saved them precious time.

"If you go outbound from the UK to New York on Concorde, you arrive before you've started so that helps," Middleton says.

"The other thing is because you're going so fast you actually don't get jet-lagged - you sort of skip that one."

But although the executives may be keen to return to Concorde and BA says it has received thousands of letters of support from ordinary people who want to see the supersonic aircraft flying once more, others are not so sure that they would happily step aboard.

Andrew Weir, an expert on plane safety and author of The Tombstone Imperative - a book about plane disasters through the years - says he would not fly on Concorde.

He says the modifications are "locking the stable door after the horse has bolted" and claims: "Concorde is an ageing aircraft with ageing technology and the years aren't doing it any favours. I think these ones would have come off the production line in the mid 70s.

"Normally, an aircraft suffers more problems as it is introduced into service - teething problems.

"For an ordinary aircraft, you get over that period in about three to five years but Concorde, in a sense, is still going through it because it flies so rarely and there are so few of them."

In addition, Weir objects to Concorde on the grounds that it is bad for the environment and a waste of energy.

He adds: "For myself, to spend thousands of pounds to shave two and a half to three hours off your journey is an absolute waste of money and resources."

As for whether Concorde's reputation has been forever damaged by the crash, he states: "Its image as a beacon of progress and a symbol of advanced, cutting-edge technology has certainly been demolished, I would say."

Yet Weir believes Concorde's image as a symbol of luxury will not have been affected - simply because only the rich can afford to buy a ticket. And he predicts that lots of wealthy people will want to fly at supersonic speeds once again.